The Orphan: A Journey to Wholeness

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Synopsis

The Orphan: A Journey to Wholeness addresses loneliness and the feeling of being alone in the world, two distinct characteristics that mark the life of an orphan. Regardless if we have grown up with or without parents, we are all too likely to meet such experiences in ourselves and in our daily encounters with others. With numerous case examples, Dr. Punnett describes how loneliness and the feeling of being alone tend to be repeated in later relationships and may eventually lead to states of anxiety and depression. The main purpose of this book is not to just stay within the context of the literal orphan, but also to explore its symbolic dimensions in order to provide meaning to the diverse experiences of feeling alone in the world. In accepting the orphan within, we begin to take responsibility for our own unique life journey, a privileged journey in which one can at some point in time say with pride, I am an orphan.

This awesome book on the orphan, its inner, outer, and symbolic meaning, is a deep and thorough investigation into the feeling of being alone in the world. The core of this archetype gives rise to our potential to search for meaning and wholeness as does all our suffering, and – if we stay with it – it becomes our teacher. Punnett’s book is a must for all of us and reading it grants us a deeply rewarding experience.

—Kathrin Asper, PhD, author of The Abandoned Child Within

This well-focused meditation demonstrates that the archetype of the Orphan is always alive in us, even if we try to devalue and marginalize it as a symbol we can safely reject along with the children we ask to carry it. Audrey Punnett has illuminated how central this neglected mythologem is to what our souls want therapists, social workers, and clergy to recognize. Her book makes a psychological home for aloneness itself—a rare and touching achievement.

—John Beebe, MD, author of Integrity in Depth

At the very end of his biography C.G. Jung wrote, “When Lao-tzu says: ‘All are clear, I alone am clouded,’ he is expressing what I now feel in advanced old age.” This feeling of seclusion is why he, at the age of 75, engraved the quotations from alchemy about the orphan on his stone at Bollingen. It is this wisdom that is behind the archetype of the orphan if we can only accept it. This is, to me, the most precious message of Audrey Punnett’s book on the Orphan.